Introduction
Psycho (1960 Paramount Pictures)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Joseph Stefano based on the Novel by Robert Bloch
Cast: Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates), Janet Leigh (Marion Crane), John Gavin (Sam Loomis), Vera Miles (Lila Crane), Martin Balsam (Detective Milton Arbogast), Vaughn Taylor (George Lowery), Frank Albertson (Tom Cassidy), Patricia Hitchcock (Caroline), John Anderson (California Charlie), Mort Mills (Highway Patrol Officer).
So much has been written about Alfred Hitchcock that I hesitate to broach the subject.
The temptation to begin with Psycho instead of going chronologically through the director’s films seemed like a good idea, since I am not going to cover every film in detail (we will look at some of his best known films as well as some of the films that should have been more popular). In addition, Psycho is the Hitchcock film that everyone knows. It was also the first of Hitchcock’s films that got my attention. Shot in black and white with the crew from his TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and scored by the enigmatic Bernard Hermann it was a film like nothing that came before. It is difficult to believe–even from a distance of almost 60 years that the film we know as Psycho ever got made in the first place.
Robert Bloch’s book is far from a great novel, but Hitchcock often worked from marginal novels and stories. He always seemed able to choose just the right screenwriter to work with to achieve his vision; Thornton Wilder for Shadow of a Doubt, Ernst Lehman for North by Northwest, Evan Hunter for The Birds. He chose a virtual unknown for Psycho. Joseph Stefano had written one produced screenplay, The Black Orchid (1958) which was directed by Martin Ritt and starred Sophia Loren and Anthony Quinn. In addition, he’d written a play for TV’s prestigious Playhouse 90 called Made in Japan (1959), two episodes of General Electric Theater (1959), and three episodes of The Detectives (1960). Given the task at hand, and the fact that Hitchcock was gambling with his own money as well as his reputation at age 60; it seems a reckless choice. Stefano took a middling horror novel and turned it into an extraordinary screenplay, and once again, the master of suspense was master of his own destiny as Psycho became one of his most successful films (made at a cost of about eight hundred thousand dollars, its US gross was thirty-two million dollars).
Stefano impressed Hitchcock by deviating from the novel and beginning the story with Marion Crane. What is clear now, is that Stefano wrote an exceptional script and that the actors cast for the parts were more than willing to create the characters that would move the story across the screen.
As the leads, Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins both had enormous disadvantages. Marion was dead forty minutes into the film and Norman turned out to be a deranged murderer. None of this had ever been done before- forget about the toilet being flushed on camera for the first time in the history of film-especially having the heroine killed off not even halfway through the film! Even becoming an absent screen presence so soon in the story, Janet Leigh made an indelible impression on the audience giving a performance that surpassed her work on Orson Welles’ noir classic, Touch of Evil (1958). Anthony Perkins’ performance as Norman Bates is still one of the most fascinatingly iconic portrayals of madness in film.
We first see Marion in a cheap hotel room having a clandestine meeting with her lover, Sam Loomis. It is here, on her lunch hour that we learn not only Marion’s distaste for clandestine meetings, but also of Sam’s financial conundrum. Marion wants to get married, but Sam feels he’s too much in debt to even think of matrimony. Marion hasn’t eaten her lunch, but must hurry back to the office.
When she arrives at the office, her conversation with the agency’s receptionist Caroline is interrupted by her employer and the inebriated and crudely suggestive client Tom Cassidy who talks about his ability to buy away unhappiness for his ‘little girl’ while waving forty thousand dollars in cash in Marion’s face. The money is meant to buy a house for his eighteen year old daughter as a wedding present. And without missing a beat, he is making an obvious pass at Marion.
Her boss does not want the money in the office overnight and tells Marion to take it to the bank on her way home. Marion feigns a headache and leaves early. Next thing we see is a suitcase on a bed and the envelope containing the forty thousand dollars. Once again we see Marion in a bra and slip. This time the undergarments are black whereas in the opening scene they were white, suggestive of a switch in intention as we watch her pack the suitcase.
Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh had no way of knowing what they were about to become part of when they accepted the roles of Norman Bates and Marion Crane. It was a combination of things that had never been juxtaposed before. Horror, comedy, and suspense in a film elevated to the level of fine art by a master of (what Hitchcock referred to himself as) “pure cinema.” Even its creator could hardly have foreseen the sensation that his project based on Robert Block’s macabre novel would create. Neither actor would ever have a role that would eclipse their link to the film. Nor would either of them ever have such powerful a role again.
NEXT: Psycho Close-Up!
